Is fracking all we have to worry about?

As protests against fracking rage on, are protesters ignoring a much greater industrial threat to the British countryside?

Flickr/whiteoutpress. Some rights reserved.

As demonstrations grow against “fracking” in the UK,
another controversial gas extraction method has quietly been licensed. Underground Coal Gasification,
or UCG, is the drilling of wells to set fire to underground coal seams and the
channelling of the mixture of gas by-products including hydrogen, carbon monoxide,
methane and large volumes of carbon dioxide up to the surface.

Two well heads are required in the UCG process, one to
inject air or oxygen down to the coal chamber and another to extract the
resulting mix of gases produced by burning the coal underground. Water taken
either from the surface, or from below the ground is also required for the UCG
process (over and above the water private companies already want to use for “fracking”).
Once the gas runs out in the initial well location, the well heads are moved to
follow the coal seam. This process leaves behind underground caverns contaminated
with toxic waste, as well as scarring the countryside further as the wellheads
creep along.

But scarring the countryside is the least of the
environmental risks caused as a direct result of UCG gas extraction methods. Reports
on onshore UCG trials from America
in 1993, Australia
in 2011 and India
in 2012 state UCG onshore trials had to be halted after groundwater was
contaminated. Contaminants included benzene – which
can cause leukaemia and bone marrow abnormalities in humans and animals – and toluene, which
can affect the kidneys, nervous system, liver, brain and heart as well as
causing miscarriages.

Of course, groundwater contamination is not the only serious consequence
of the UCG process to extract gas, as experts admit UCG also creates major
subsidence risks both above and below ground, (with the Frack
Off website also listing 20 different known environmental risks it believes
are associated with UCG gas extraction).

A
2011 American Report states “While UCG has a number of advantages,
significant technological barriers must still be addressed before UCG can be
considered commercially viable. Costly environmental consequences such as
aquifer contamination and ground subsidence need consideration before
commercial application.” A few weeks ago,
a Queensland Government panel rejected the commercial UCG industry in
Queensland “until the
companies proved they could halt the combustion process once gas had been
extracted”, this is despite the companies using “world-leading technology”
according to Mines Minister Andrew Cripps.

A newly formed British company, Cluff Natural Resources,
has applied for the first onshore licence in the UK to start UCG gas extraction
in Warwickshire, with their
founder, Algy Cluff claiming underground coal gasification is “safe and unlike
fracking”, despite evidence to the contrary from recent trials worldwide. He also
claims UCG “is a fairly well established practice internationally” – again despite
the Queensland government banning UCG, on an industrial scale, just weeks ago
because it is still not safe, even when using world leading technology.

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